Heathcote Scouts ready to do their best

SCOUTING is back in Heathcote for the first time since the 1990s.

Local resident Roman Powers was motivated to start a group after discovering his children would need to travel long distances to become scouts.

“I’ve got three kids and I was going to put them into scouts but realised the nearest groups were in Strathfieldsaye or Seymour,” he said.

“They were already doing basketball soccer and swimming in Bendigo and it’s just too much travelling, so I asked Scouts Victoria if we could start a group in Heathcote.”

After many months of behind-the-scenes work, the 1st Heathcote Scout Group is officially launching on Sunday, 5 March at the Heathcote Masonic Lodge, 82 High Street, Heathcote.

Cubs, 8-11 years, will be from 11.30am to 1pm and scouts, 11-14 years, from 2pm to 4pm.

Scouting is open to both boys and girls at all age levels.

“There’s quite a bit going on for the launch,” Mr Powers said. “We are going to have kids coming down from other groups and there’s going to be quite a lot of people from Scouts Victoria coming down as well.

“We’ll have activities and games being run by a venturer group and we’ll be having a sausage sizzle between the two groups.”

Mr Powers said Heathcote scouts would initially run on weekends.

“We’ve got a lot of help is coming in from other groups from around Bendigo and they’re only available on the weekend to help train up our leaders,” he said. “Eventually we will move to a weekday.

“It’s quite hard to gauge from the interest we’ve had, but I would estimate 20 to 30 kids coming in at start.

‘We are looking for group leaders and parent volunteers, the more volunteers we’ve got the more successful the group is going to be.”

Mr Power said he welcomed sponsorship from local businesses.

“There’ll be costs with getting setup, there’ll be equipment needed so we can start getting activities going,” he said.

“We’ll be doing our own fundraising when we are set up but we’re definitely calling out to any businesses that want to assist us starting up.

“I think that ultimately what I would like to do with the group is offer a scholarship program so the kids that can’t afford to go to scouts can get help with their fees.

“I just want to make it available for everyone.”

Potential volunteers and local businesses wishing to sponsor the new scout group can contact Roman Powers at [email protected] or look for the 1st Heathcote Scouts Group on Facebook.